You are here

WEST COAST 'BLACK COMMENTATOR' ACTIVIST PASSES

Apr. 14 (GIN) – Longtime editorial writer, poet and political organizer Carl Bloice was remembered by friends and comrades at a gathering in San Francisco this week. The West Coast writer succumbed suddenly to a years-long battle with cancer.

Bloice was known for his many columns on U.S. and international issues that appeared widely. He was on the Editorial Board of the Black Commentator.

In a Facebook post, friends wrote that “to his last days, Carl kept up his enormous capacity and energy for reading and writing. His columns for the Black Commentator were circulated in Portside and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).

In 1973, as editor of the Peoples World newspaper, he was named as sponsor of the National Anti-Imperialist Conference in Solidarity with African Liberation, held in Chicago. In 1991 along with other dissident members of the Communist Party, he was part of the CCDS, a breakway group that held its first national conference in Berkeley California.

The Facebook post continued: “Carl never let up insisting that we focus politically on the economic crisis, the fight to preserve and expand social programs, the outrage of joblessness particularly as it impacted young people, African Americans and Latinos.”

Among his most recent pieces were: ”In a Changing Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia Cling Together” in Foreign Policy in Focus. “Austerity Measures Meet Resistance and the Democratic Will” in the LA Progressive, and “Mobilizing for War, Not for Jobs,” in Truthout.